Clocks
by phoenix521
Summary: fayecentric songfic set to 'clocks' by coldplay. this time around, faye has a revelation that allows her to finally start living her life. why not give it a try? i'm pretty sure you'll like it.


**guess who's back? back again? no, it's not slim shady, it's just lil' ole me. so here i am again, back with another song fic. it's all i seem to do...with the exception of 'pages', of course. well, this time around, things are set to coldplay's 'clocks', and it's another faye-centric piece. basically, her memories aren't all that they're cracked up to be. there's gonna be sadness and discovery, and ultimately, this one will end better than 'don't bother', i promise. **

**so read and enjoy. and review if you'd like. but if you do, nothing harsh, please. now on with the fic!**

**ps - let's pretend that spike doesn't die, okay? we got that? good.**

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_Lights go out and I can't be saved.  
Tides that I tried to swim against,_

Faye jolted awake, dimly aware of the sweat that was clinging to her body. Blinking the images out of her mind, the startled woman shook her head in a desperate attempt to get them out. She heaved a sigh and rubbed her temples, silently wondering when these dreams would finally stop.

Her memories where back, after three long years of waiting. But they didn't provide her with the comfort that she had hoped for. No, the things that she remembered only served to further propel her into the empty space that she so often floated in.

Night after night, for just over a month now, wave after wave of pained recollection would assault her sleeping mind. Her family, her friends, her life was gone, vanished in an instant of unforeseen complications. Pulling herself up and out of what was once her comfort; Faye moved from her bed and ventured off towards the bathroom.

Blindly feeling her way down the desolate hall, Faye had the fleeting thought that maybe she should have put on some shoes. The floor was bloody freezing. Upon arriving in the tiny, tiled room, Faye glanced at herself in the mirror. A few weeks ago, she was only able to recognize her visage. Now, she could recognize her entire being. But what good did that do her now? Sense of self or not, she was no longer the Faye Valentine she was born to be.

She filled the sink, just below the brim, and stared at its pristine surface. Drawing in a breath, she plunged her flushed face into the cold liquid. For once, she was actually glad that the water heater was broken. Blowing out air through her nose, Faye let out a curt scream while still under the water.

Freeing herself and raising her head, Faye wiped off her face and rested her head on the wall. She flicked off the light and allowed herself to wallow in the darkness. All she wanted in this life, in the hand that she'd been dealt, was herself, her one and only self. And now that the thoughts of her life before had returned, she began to pray for them to all but disappear again.

_You've put me down upon my knees.  
__Oh I beg, I beg and please, singin',_

Not interested in falling back asleep, Faye decided to calm herself the best and cheapest way she knew how. Grabbing her cigarettes from her sweater pocket, and her Zippo from the floor, Faye headed to the hanger, the most open place available at the moment.

It was times like these where the vixen hated space travel. More often then not, after a fitful rest, all Faye wanted was to breathe the fresh air. But there's no air in space, and that's a well none fact, though Faye briefly thought that she could go for a dose of the vacuum that _is_ space. But she quickly thought against it.

Climbing up into her Red Tail, Faye slinked into her seat and lit up. She lazily closed her eyes, only to pop them open again. No use tempting the dreams to filter back in so soon. Exhaling smoke and misery, Faye hummed a song, an oldie by today's standards, but still so fresh and new in her mind. She was grateful for things like that, for music she remembered. A melody here or a chorus there, those were the only memories that seemed to ease her soul. But music had that effect on her, so she recalled. It _did_ soothe that savage beast, after all.

Flicking the ash from her finished cig, Faye carelessly tossed it onto the hanger floor. She momentarily registered the fact that Jet would be less than enthusiastic to find her debris strewn about, but she really didn't care. Besides, she'd just kick the butt over towards Spike's ship and let him take the fall.

Faye wasn't in the mood to think about the cowboy, he was a different kind of headache that she simply didn't need. All she needed to lament on was the fact that he came back. She didn't know how, and she didn't particularly care why, but that didn't change the fact that he was on the Bebop once again.

Becoming increasingly upset with her current train of thought, Faye settled on taking a walk around the ship. As she descended from her seat, though, her foot slipped on the slick surface, and she clamored to the floor, her knees breaking her fall. Cursing herself, her ship, and the heavens in general, Faye succumbed to her weakness and began to cry.

"Why is this happening to me?" She pleaded. "Why…why can't I just be okay?"

She sobbed lightly to herself as she stayed in her position on her now bruised knees. How did she find herself falling apart so easily?

_Come out of things unsaid,  
__Shoot, an apple off my head._

Several minutes after the fact, Faye pushed herself up off of her knees. She wrapped her arms around her waist, trying her best to hold herself in check. She walked back to her room, aware of what she needed to do. She had to run. Run away, or run towards…either one would work. But she knew she couldn't stay. This wasn't her place. Truthfully, she didn't have a place. The Bebop, however, was just more unwelcoming in this moment.

Finally finding her scant room once more, Faye hurried to fill her bag, once again trying to hold back the tears which she so often shed. Tossing what little clothing and belongs she had into the borrowed sack, Faye then quickly put on her boots and made herself ready to go.

"It's not like anyone ever wanted me here, anyway," Faye whispered to herself.

If she judged her acceptance on the ship by how the two men treated her, then it was safe to say that Faye was nothing more than a nuisance. She couldn't count all of the times that Jet had called her useless. Or the times that he had said that she was nothing more than a mooch. And then there was Spike. If you wanted useless, then he would be the champ, but that was beside the point. The jaded cowboy had the nerve to tell her _she _was a waste on more than one occasion. Yeah, well at least she wasn't waiting on a ghost.

But all of their jeers added up to the same thing: she wasn't wanted here. No one had the balls to say it, but she more than knew it was true. So deciding to get while the getting was good, Faye knew that she would be leaving for the good. There was no coming back this time; that just wasn't going to be an option.

"You don't have to put a gun to my head to get me to leave. I get it. I'm gone."

Faye closed the door of what had served as her room for the last year or so. Heading out to her ship once more, and wondering why she didn't wait to put on her loudly clinking heels, she silently hoped that the men would stay in their rooms. She also silently hoped that they wouldn't.

_And the trouble that can't be named,  
__The tiger's waiting to be tamed, singin'._

Having heaved her bag into the void behind her seat, Faye buried her face in her hands. She was successful in holding back the tears, but for that moment, her head was a bit too heavy. Sighing and running her hands through her unrestricted hair, Faye walked over to the control panel and set the hanger to open in twenty seconds. Hurrying back, Faye positioned herself in her seat, closed the Red Tail's hatch, and prepared to take off.

It was a pity that the door didn't open silently, nor that her ship started with a hush. She really didn't want to be looked for this time. Faye wanted a clean break; she wanted all ties to be cut. Lucky for her, there weren't many ties established in the first place.

As the hanger opened to reveal black, star-filled hollowness, Faye maneuvered her ship into space and slowly exited the ship. She dared a glance back at the floating hunk of metal and felt something akin to an ache. But it was probably just a residual pain, still left over from earlier in the night.

Edging out further into space, Faye came to the part of her plan that was troublesome. Mainly for the fact that there was no more plan at all. She knew that she had to leave, and after that, she didn't quite know what else to do. But that was Faye's way: run now, figure things out later. All she knew was that she wanted to go home.

"Home," she said to herself. That was her trouble, her unanswerable question. She didn't have one of those anymore. She didn't have anyone to care for, and no one would care for her.

It was a silly thought that drilled into her consciousness just then. For all the bickering and arguing that Faye experienced with both of the males on the ship, they still came and got her, for reasons she couldn't explain. Spike had come for her when Vicious had taken her. Jet had come for her when she had ended up on Callisto. Granted they had good reasons to find her, no one made them come for her. But they did, time and time again, and Faye could never grasp why.

"Why would they do that?" She questioned.

It was never something that she had asked herself before. It was never anything she wanted to think about. But if she did dwell, even for a moment, she could easily convince herself that they had cared for her, even in the slightest bit. But that was just a delusion, created by her attention-starved mind.

_You are,  
__You are._

She knew in truth, that they only saw her as a wild cat that couldn't be tamed. Since they could do so, so easily with Ein, she figured they thought they could tame her as well. But Faye was her own kind of wild animal, made so exotic by her lack of self. Now that she was back, this wild animal decided to return to her most natural habitat, as desolate as it may now be. Besides, she was always a fan of licking her wounds in the privacy of what she once knew.

_Confusion never stops,  
__Closing walls and ticking clocks._

In the reality that only her mind could create, Faye heard the incessant ticking of one of her most hated contraptions. She looked to her left and was caught off guard by the menacing clock that whooshed at her. She only had a few seconds to duck before another clock came soaring at her from the left. Loosing her step, Faye crashed to the ground and let out an annoyed groan. Her sounds where cut short, however, by ticking coming from below her. Glancing down, Faye recoiled as she discovered that she was lying on a giant clock, its hands spinning at an impossibly fast rate.

Snapping her eyes open, Faye huffed out a strained cry as she banged her head against her headrest. She had had that dream before; the clocks that never stopped ticking. It had occurred before her memories reappeared, but increasingly afterwards, as well. It didn't make sense to Faye, since clocks had to do with time. What did time have to do with her now? It had abandoned her and left her as a transient in another era. If anything, time was an ineffaceable enemy that she would never be free of. But she still had no idea what that had to do with her dreams.

Staring out into the void, Faye could see the outline of Earth. The blue and green that gave the planet its name shone brightly against the dark backdrop. She didn't know why, but Faye was still inexplicably drawn to this ball of water. Though it was her home, Faye didn't know anything about it anymore. Like a lover that she had lost touch with, Earth was mysterious, strange, yet inviting at the same time. To her, home may not have been where the heart was anymore, but structures or not, she could still always go home again.

_Gonna come back and take you home,  
__I could not stop but you now know, singin'._

"What are you doing?"

Faye looked down at her comm. and silently cursed the sleepy face that stared back at her.

"I asked you a question, Faye."

She sighed. She really didn't want this. Yes, it was nice to know they'd ask why she'd gone, but Faye didn't want to explain herself to anyone at the moment.

"I left," she answered none-heartedly.

"Why'd you leave? And what did you take?"

Faye's lips, which were pale for once, cocked up into a light smile. Leave it to dear old Jet to mask his waning concern for the people on his ship. She almost regretted leaving the elder bounty hunter.

"Everything's where it's supposed to be, Jet. I didn't take anything this time."

"Nani? You didn't take _anything_?" Jet stammered, truly confused. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say that you were trying to make a clean getaway."

"I was," Faye deadpanned.

There were several moments of silence from both people. The silence seemed louder to Faye, though. She casually stared at the balding man in the monitor while he rubbed the back of his head and glanced idly to the side.

"What did we do?"

"Huh?"

"Whenever you leave, which is a lot, you always take something, daring us to come and get you. Are you saying that you don't want us to find you this time?"

"I never wanted you to find me," she lied.

Again, the hush of the awkward situation settled in. She heard the man sigh and clear his throat.

"You know he'll come after you, right?"

"I don't know why," the woman sighed.

"I don't think he knows why, either. But he'll come either way."

"Tell him not to."

"You know I can't tell him anything."

Faye's eyes fixed themselves onto a distant star and mulled over Jet's words. She didn't want to be found this time. Faye was more than ready to just become lost to the world, lost to everything. Why couldn't they understand that?

"And don't think you can hide…he'll find you," Jet commented. He knew that something was up with Faye, but he didn't know that that 'something' could lead to this.

"Are you threatening me now?"

"No, just telling you to be prepared."

"Just…just try to stop him. Just try to stop all of this. I don't know what I want anymore, but I don't want what you're all unwilling to give."

"What we're unwilling to –."

He never got a chance to finish what he was saying, Faye had cut him off. There was nothing that he could say, that she wanted to hear. Lies and promises, truths and forgeries, Faye wanted no more of those. That's all they ever told her, all they never gave. Maybe she was sick of them, or maybe she was sick of herself. She _did_ know, though, that she needed all of this to stop.

_Come out upon my seas,  
__Curse missed opportunities_.

As she neared Earth, Faye thanked the God she doubted, for installing her ship with its own navigation system. She knew she'd never be able to make her way through the pieces of moon that now occupied the atmosphere. Carefully descending through the clouds, Faye consulted her map and banked left, sadly eager to see those fountains again.

As she flew, she found warm comfort in the sight in front of her. The sun was rising, just making its way above the limitless horizon. It had been so long since she had seen her last sunrise, and she easily found appreciation in that bit of beauty that life allowed her to see.

Close to an hour later, the familiar pictures that rested in her head materialized into reality once more. Finding an apt spot to land, Faye settled her craft and eagerly hopped out. Stretching her limbs and inhaling the clean, fresh air, Faye felt a smile make its way onto her face.

Walking from her ship, Faye approached the dragon statue, imaging the sight of water pouring from its mouth. She sat at the base of the marble and stared out onto the inlet's glistening, calm surface. Closing her eyes and enjoying the mist that lightly sprayed her, Faye let her mind cease any thinking that it was prone to doing.

When she opened her eyes again, the sun was hanging high, signaling to her that she had fallen asleep in the tranquility of the morning. Yawning and scratching a superfluous itch at the back of her head, Faye all but cringed when ceased thoughts returned full force.

Now that she was here, what was she supposed to do? She had no where to go, no place to live. She had no money whatsoever, and mildly regretted not taking anything from the Bebop after all.

Faye gave a light chuckle at the thought, but quickly fell back into seriousness. She was now voluntarily lost and alone, and she inevitably regretted her half-baked idea. At the back of her mind, the very, very back, Faye half-heartedly hoped that Spike would come find her and drag her back. But she told Jet to tell him to stop, and the lunkhead was more accustomed to listen nowadays. It seemed as though when Spike survived the fight, whatever fight that was left in him was washed completely away.

Faye sighed and cursed aloud. Taking up a piece of crumbled marble, she hurled it into the water, frustration in her every movement.

_Am I a part of the cure?  
__Or am I part of the disease, singin'?_

Springing up onto sleepy legs, Faye tossed another rock into blue liquid and screamed her irritation.

"Why can't you just leave me alone?"

Though he had absolutely nothing to do with her most recent decision to leave, Spike would always be a source of hurt and anguish for Faye. He never cared for her, he never asked why. It didn't matter what the question was, just as long as it was asked.

She wasn't blonde, she didn't have blue eyes, and she was never a part of a syndicate. She wasn't a push over, she wasn't classy, and she wasn't what anyone wanted her to be. Hell, she wasn't what _she_ wanted to be. But if someone, absolutely anyone, had ever even pretended to want what she gave, then maybe she would have been more okay with herself.

And Spike would never make her feel that way. He looked at her like she was some sort of disease. He treated her as if she would infect him with a most horrid ailment if he didn't keep her at arms length at all times. She hated that about him. She hated a lot of things about him, but it was his goddamn stand-offishness that really got to her. Here she was, a constant mass of unbalanced emotions, and he refused to believe he had emotions at all. Hell, even Jet proved he had a heart every now and then.

Falling backwards and catching herself on the stone structure once more, Faye didn't acknowledge, nor wipe away the tears the openly streamed down her warm cheeks. There was nothing that she could do for him, especially if she couldn't do anything for herself. And it's not like he wanted anything from her anyway. She was the disease, she had to remember, not anything like the cure at all.

Faye blinked her eyes and wiped away her tears. She turned her face towards the sky and inhaled, almost as if breathing in the suns' rays. There was nothing to be gained from wallowing, so Faye decided to visit the remains of her home. She knew there was nothing there, but she didn't _need_ anything to be there right now. She'd just draw another outline of her bed and let that carry her for the moment.

Pushing open the now pointless gates that once enclosed her life, Faye made her way around the debris and the craters, and scouted her room once more. The sketch of her bed was still there in the sand, and the irony of that was not lost on the woman. Fitting herself into the illusion she created, Faye sighed and closed her eyes to the world.

_You are, you are.  
__You are, you are.  
__You are, you are._

Dreams and memories swirled in Faye's head once more. It was the senseless dance she did every time she fell asleep. She was always on the outside, looking in on what she used to know. Almost as if watching a movie that she knew by heart, Faye experienced her thoughts and feelings and actions, again and again in her dream world.

The little girl, so sprightly and full of glee, would stare back at her, almost as if questioning who she was. But she _knew_ who she was now. She was who she always was, just…altered. That wasn't good enough, however. Altered _wasn't_ the same. Altered was so very different. Who she was and who she would be, no longer correlated the way they once did.

"You are my daughter, and I will love you for always," the sweet voice of her mother would comfort.

"You are my little princess, and I'll always be you white knight," her father would lovingly tell her.

"You are my sister, and even though you're whiney, I wouldn't trade you for anything," her big sister would say.

But these are the people that she _was_. She was nobody's daughter now. And her white knight had long ago ridden off into the sunset without her. Though she could still identify with being whiney, she had the sinking feeling that she'd be traded in an instant.

Waking to find her eyes moist once more, Faye rested her head on her knees and sobbed almost uncontrollably. She didn't know how she still had so many tears to cry, but for all that she had lost, Faye figured that she could cry for an eternity.

"I am no longer what I once was," she whispered into the breezy air.

_Nothing else compares.  
__Oh, no nothing else compares,  
__Oh, no nothing else compares._

It was a losing battle that Faye fought as she desperately tried to regain what she had lost. Sitting in the red soil that once provided structure for her home, the realization finally dawned on Faye that she could never have that again. That life was dead. _Faye Valentine _was dead. Now, there was this imitation, the body that pretended to be a continuation of a past. But that's not what she was anymore. And she could never be that way again.

Her memories, Faye slowly understood, were nothing more than that: memories. They were things that had happened, but that could never happen again, no matter how similar the circumstances. Nothing that she could ever experience would ever compare to what she once had. But the same was true for the flip side of that equation as well. Nothing that she would ever experience from then on would ever compare. That was life, and that was a valuable lesson that Faye was finally coming to grasp.

Feeling a sudden effortless cool wash over her, Faye felt as if she had had the greatest epiphany of her life. For so long, all she craved was the mind that she had lost. The want and need haunted her every day. And when she finally got them back, they continued to haunt her because they promised her things that she could never have again. Faye wanted her memories so she could find her way in this new life. But all those old scenes would ever do is hold her back from what the new Faye could be.

It was then that an all too familiar sound thatnipped at her ears. It was the steady metronome of a heartbeat, though the sound was nothing so romantic. Curiosity piquing her, Faye rose from the shackles of her past and went in search of the noise. Out of her room and down the hallway, past her sister's room and the room that housed her little brother, Faye continued on her way.

Out the front door and into the front yard, she made her way around the fountain and over to the grass and trees. There was nothing there except for what her mind recalled, but the glint she saw under the dust was no illusion. Bending down and delicately clutching the item, Faye all but laughed out loud at what she found. A watch, _her _watch, still ticking away as if it were brand new. She studied it briefly and the memory of leaving it flooded her mind. She was half way to space before she remembered that she had left her favorite watch on her dresser. It was a Timex, and true to its slogan, it took a licking and kept on ticking.

_You are,  
__You are._

As she gazed at the watch, she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her when she saw the hands start to slow. But as she gazed harder, she noticed that the hands were indeed slowing down. The tick that she had grown to hate slowed as well until finally, the sounds and the motions grinded to an appropriate stop.

And it suddenly hit Faye that she truly did get it now. She was no longer trying to get back to a life that no longer existed, she finally understood that time kept going. And now that she got that, now that she accepted it, she was no longer a prisoner of time. She was now free of the very thing that she tried so desperately to get back.

For once in a long forever, Faye finally felt free. She smiled in her revelation and began to strap the now lifeless watch around her wrist, but stopped. Smiling brighter, Faye let the watch drop to the ground, once again lost in the dusty remains. To keep the watch would only serve to tie her to her past, and she now knew she no longer needed that.

While she would now and forever always have her memories, she would no longer look to them for guidance. She would make her own way in the world. She would now be who she was meant to be in this life, not who she was supposed to be way back when.

"You are who you are meant to be," he grandmother whispered into her enlightened mind. "Never, ever try to change that. You'll only be met with impossible resistant all the way."

Those were the only words that Faye decided to hold on to. The only ones still applicable to her life. Looking upwards once more, she could truly feel the liberation that she had been seeking all along. And as she opened her jade orbs to bask in the blue and yellow of the sky, she caught sight of the familiar shape that was headed her way.

_Home, home where I wanted to go.  
__Home, home where I wanted to go._

Faye really wasn't overly surprised to see the Swordfish II racing towards her. She could only imagine how pissed Spike would be this time. For all she knew, Jet might have _made _him come and get her. He was probably worried that she really was leaving for good this time. That or he was still ticked about the money she owed him.

Seeing the MONO craft land several yards away from her, Faye folded her arms across her chest in a mock angry fashion. She watched him get out of the ship and all but run over to her. There was a look akin to relief on the cowboy's face, definitely not the expression Faye had expected.

"What the hell are you doing here, Faye?" Spike asked in a strained tone.

"I left. Isn't it obvious," she retorted, a smirk making its way onto her tear and dirt streaked features.

"You left and didn't take anything," he said as he slowly began to approach closer.

"So? I figure that'd make you happy."

"I'm glad you didn't touch my stuff, but you gave me less of an incentive to come after you."

"I didn't leave to give you something to do, lunkhead. I have my reasons."

"Reasons like what?" Spike asked, actually looking for an answer.

"I don't know. I guess I needed to ease my mind…"

"Or perhaps you were just giving any reason for me to find you."

Faye gave him a genuine smile and shook her head at him playfully.

"No Spike, this was solely for me. I wanted to find my home."

Spike nodded at her, understanding that she didn't mean her literal home this time around.

"And did you?" he asked, not sure what he wanted to hear from her.

"I've been wanting to go home for so long. I've been dying to find the parts of me that I had lost so long ago. I came back here, hoping to find what I was missing. But…I guess it wasn't here, after all."

Spike sighed, almost pleased with her answer. He closed the gap between them and carefully put his arms around the shrew of a woman. Holding her closer than he was sure he was ready for, he rested his head on hers.

_Home, home where I wanted to go.  
__Home, home where I wanted to go._

"Maybe you didn't find what you were looking for, because your home is on the Bebop. Because your home is with Jet and…and me."

Holding onto the cowboy and breathing in his scent, she chuckled at the apprehension in his statement. She couldn't imagine how much pride he had to swallow to say that to her.

"Home on that floating hunk of junk? And with and ex-cop _and_ a jilted lover? Sounds more like a hostel than a home to me."

"Yeah, well, it's better than a plot of dirt and some seagulls."

Pulling back slightly, Spike carefully placed his hand on her cheek. He vainly rubbed away the dust that painted her skin and slowly lowered his lips to hers. He kissed her softly, just enough to tell her what he had to say, tell her what she needed to hear. And in that moment, as the sun began to set, time had all but stopped for them. Faye was free from her past and free to simply exist in the here and now. And as she kissed her timeless cowboy, Faye finally felt like she was home.

WELCOME HOME,  
_COWBOYS…_

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**and that's the end of that. so what did you think? i've actually been trying to get this down on paper for about a year now. after 'prayer for the dying', i was totally into writing song fics, but this one never materialized. but it's here, now. so, i really appreciate you reading this and all. guess that's if for now. thanks for stopping by!**

**phoenix**


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